January 26, 2013

Mamata and her men stoke controversies as rivals ‘hiss’

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,
who has a penchant for courting controversies, effortlessly stirred yet another
when she wondered at a public meeting whether she should beat up the prime
minister for getting her demands met.

As the Trinamool Congress supremo came under
intense criticism for her remarks, she found an able comrade in ministerial
peer Jyotipriya Mallick – now famous for bizarre prescriptions – who this time
dished out a “venomous” decree.

The week began on a stormy note when
Banerjee, while venting her ire on the Congress- led central government said:
“What else can I do? Shall I go beat him up? Then people will call me a goon.
But I don’t care. I can go to the very last mile for the people.”

She made the remarks at Canning in South 24
Parganas while stating that her repeated meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh yielded no result on her demand to lower fertilizer prices.

The remarks gave the opposition – the
Congress and the CPI-M led Left Front – the much needed fodder as they went
ballistic in slamming her, with some of the leaders even questioning her mental
health....